Cboe Sees No Reason To Stop At Bitcoin When It Comes To Futures On Pyramid Schemes

Do you know what would be a great idea now that the cryptocurrency bubble is bursting before our very eyes?

Well, let me tell you.

It would be a great idea if the Cboe inexplicably decided to go ahead and roll out contracts on digital currencies other than Bitcoin. Because what’s needed amid a collapse in the most egregious example of financial speculation in the history of the world are more ways to speculate.

“Fortunately”, Cboe chairman and chief executive Ed Tilly signaled that at some point, futures contracts on other cryptocurrencies are a possibility. According to FT, citing comments Tilly made to reporters at a press event on Wednesday, that’s “not imminent.” Of course by the time it is “imminent”, they’ll all be at zero anyway, so maybe we’ll be spared that spectacle.

Here’s what Chris Concannon, Cboe’s president and chief operating officer, had to say:

You look at the entire crypto space and you look at what other products have the liquidity and the notional size, a derivative makes sense.

Ok, Chris. Sure. It makes all kinds of “sense”. Now if only you guys were around for tulips.

Less funny, but more notable, were Tilly’s comments on ETFs. Here’s FT:

Successful settlements of bitcoin futures contracts are among the necessary elements to pave the way for exchange traded funds based on the cryptocurrency, top executives at Cboe Global Markets said on Wednesday.

Ed Tilly, Cboe’s chairman and chief executive, told reporters at a press event “a number of settlements,” were likely needed ahead of the roll-out of an ETF, on the same day the first monthly futures contract on bitcoin expired.

Great. So one settlement down and an unidentified “several” to go before Bitcoin ETFs are unleashed upon the unsuspecting retail masses.

As Bloomberg notes, “Cboe’s January contracts expired Wednesday, and Gemini’s auction set the settlement’s reference price at $10,900, seemingly without a hitch.”